


You Make Me Smile

by blueberryfallout



Series: This Is Not A Harley Quinn Story [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Gen, basically me wanking on for 5000 words, jason todd's usual level of angst, latino!jason todd, orginal character based, there's a death but it's chill don't worry about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-22 21:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryfallout/pseuds/blueberryfallout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>oh yeah so here's this i guess? i think i'm done for real now but you never know. quinn's the only oc i've ever bothered caring about lol</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. :)

“My name’s Jason,” Hood says when we get back home from Joker’s cremation, me awkwardly flexing my new prosthesis. It gleams even in the dim light, vaguely creepy. 

The surgeons couldn’t tell me what planet it’s from but they seemed very pleased with my range of motion. “Better than a real hand!” one said cheerily, until I muttered, “But I **want** my real hand.” Joker’s been controlling my hands for years now, first tattooing the right one and now taking the left, leaving me with both hands covered in other people’s blood. I’m fiercely glad he’s dead.

Shaking the thought away, I say, “Okay.” That would explain why Oracle called him Jay. I’m pretty sure he’ll always be Hood in my head, though.

“So, what do you want to do now?” Hood asks, shoving a slice of pizza into his mouth. Grease trails down his dark skin; not as dark as mine but I’m pretty sure it’s cause he’s mixed. 

“I’m going to volunteer at a women’s shelter.” 

I can tell that’s not the answer he’s expecting, though he recovers quickly. “Sure. You can do whatever you want now.” 

“Even go back to Haiti?” There’s a flash of disappointment in his eyes, barely noticeable if I wasn’t so used to reading emotions. 

“Yeah. Even that.” 

“I don’t want to,” I say like I’ve decided just this second. He grins around his mouthful of pizza. I smile back, and his eyes barely linger on the scars around my mouth. Progress. I cough, the sound gravelly as always, before reaching for a slice. Hood cracks open two beers, pushes one across to me. I’m more than old enough to drink by now. The thought sometimes escapes me. I never even graduated high school; Joker took that away from me, too. 

“A toast, to Joker’s death,” Hood says, like he’s reading my mind. I smile as our glasses clink.  
++++  
I dream about Joker that night, his face up close and bloody. I’m hitting him over and over until he’s the girl, the wannabe vigilante I watched him slaughter years ago. Some things slip through my brain like a cancer, getting slime everywhere. She’s one of them. 

I wake gasping for air, roll to my side in a ball. Joker’s dead, he’s _dead_ , and he’ll never touch me again. In the pitch darkness of the room my fake arm still gleams, thin lines of light threading through it that weren’t visible during the day. I flex my fingers, distracted, thinking that if Joker were here this hand could easily crush his throat. I picture his gore on my hands, my clothes, and I’ve _been_ there, I watched Hood make a crater of his skull. 

Two seconds after that I realize I’m going to vomit, make it to the bathroom with seconds to spare. There’s not a lot in my stomach to throw up, so after I flush I’m left leaning my head against the cool porcelain. 

“I’m gonna assume you’re not doing this cause you’re pregnant,” Hood says from the doorway, yawning. His hair’s all fucked up in the front, white streak curling. “Panic attack?” I nod, clicking my fake fingers against the tile. My throat hurts. 

“Is it always going to be like this?” I had thought that maybe once Joker was dead I could be okay again. I rest the fingers of my good hand around my knee, waiting. There’s two scars just under my thumb. I can remember Joker sitting between my legs, curling a hand around my thigh as he sliced slow, careful. He’d kissed my knee after, uncharacteristically gentle. “Pretty Quinnie.”  
There’s another scar, deeper, where my pinky lands. I can’t remember where I got this one. I wonder if there are people who can remember their every scar. 

Hood doesn’t bother answering, because we both know the truth. It won’t go away. “Are you gonna cry?”

“Mhm.”

He hesitates, which is unusual enough that I glance to the side, curious. “Do you want me to stay?”

I snort a laugh, knowing neither of us are much for comfort. It’s nice that he cares enough to ask, though. “No.” 

“Okay.” He slinks away, limping a little. I wonder if he sees Joker when he sleeps, too. Probably.  
++  
The next morning, I wake up to plates clinking, voices. I hope there aren’t people in the kitchen. When I head out it’s just Hood, talking quietly into a headset as he makes pancakes, the good kind with too much butter. My stomach rumbles. When I was with Joker I ate when he did, so sporadically and little. I lost forty pounds I didn’t need to lose. I’m always hungry now. 

“Yeah, Roy. I’ll call later,” Hood says, touching his ear. The table is laid out nice, placemats and everything, orange juice in glasses that actually match. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Making pancakes,” he answers, rubbing at the back of his calf with a foot. From here I can see his shoulders tense. He doesn’t wear shirts often. I wouldn’t either, if I had abs like that. I settle at the table, facing him. Nerves uncoil in the pit of my stomach. I fiddle with the Cheeto stain on the bottom of my shirt. It’s been there for three days cause I really need to do laundry. 

My fake hand thumps awkwardly on the table when I put it there, making him flinch, unusually jumpy. He turns, too fast, and it’s my turn to flinch, although I know by now that he’s not gonna hit me. “Here, have these pancakes. Use as much syrup as you want.”  
I grab the syrup, careful, starting to get nervous as he sits across from me. The pancakes melt on my tongue, but I’m not tasting them. I watch Hood methodically shove food into his mouth, staring down. “Are they good?” he asks exactly five minutes into the meal. I’ve been watching the clock over his shoulder. 

“Sure.” His face falls, and it’s kind of the first time I realize exactly how young he is. Definitely younger than me, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He died young, is spending his early twenties as a vigilante. I spent mine in Arkham. “I mean…they’re great.” I smile painfully. 

His face lights up, and the nervous pit in my stomach gets deeper. “Great!” 

I force a few more forkfuls down before blurting, “Please don’t ask me out.” 

His eyes go huge and round as he drops his fork. It’s the biggest loss of control I’ve seen him have. “What the _fuck?_ ” 

“You’re being really nice and it’s weird!” My voice scrapes like a knife. 

He cracks a grin, finally, says, “I was only gonna ask you to room with me permanently.” 

I let out a long breath, take another bite of my pancakes. They’re delicious again. “Oh.” 

My fake hand accidentally cracks the plate when I pull it closer, but he’s still smiling. “Is that a yes?” 

“Yeah.” I’d be an idiot not to say yes, he’s probably my only friend in the world at this point. I grin, for real this time. “Thanks.”

He shrugs, bending back over his pancakes, but I can see the pleased smirk on his face. Breakfast continues in peaceful silence.  
++++  
I leave the women’s shelter at about eight and walk home alone, bag dangling loosely from my fingertips. There’s no one in this city that I’m afraid of now that Joker’s dead. Also, I’m pretty sure my fake hand makes me an almost superhero or something. 

When I get home, Hood’s not there. Batman is. He sits crouched in the kitchen window, cape pooling around his feet. I haven’t seen him since Haiti. “I came to see Red Hood,” he growls, voice almost as raspy as mine. I wonder if it’s natural.

“He’s not here.” 

“I need to talk to him about the Joker.” 

“He deserved to die,” I spit, stepping closer. The last time I saw Batman I was a shivering mouse of a thing, wrist still broken. But I’ve been listening to the other women talk at the shelter, go over hurt after hurt, and I’m never going to be anyone’s bitch again. 

“Killing isn’t the solution.”

“Neither was having him in and out of Arkham. He cut off my hand. Who knows what he’d do next?” I’d be six feet under, like everyone else Joker knew, just another in a list of hundreds. We both know it.

He turns to go, pausing in the windowsill. “Catwoman asked about you.” I feel the familiar flutter in my chest; one of the few good things I did while with Joker was save her life. 

“Well, us girls have to stick together,” I murmur, repeating something she told me years ago. He grunts and ducks out, leaving me alone in the dark apartment.  
+  
Hood comes home bedraggled, a chunk taken out of his helmet, claw marks on the back of his jacket that cut deep enough to reveal the armor underneath. He makes his slow way to the couch, groaning as he lays himself down. I hurry to grab the first aid kit. 

“Who’d you fight today?” 

“Man Bat. He’s such an _asshole_ ,” he grumbles as I smear anti-septic over the cut on his forehead. He’ll need a butterfly bandage and it’ll scar, but not badly. “Will I still have my good looks, Doc?” he jokes, scratching at the sides of his undercut.

“Well, you would if you had any in the first place.” I take a moment to wonder what it’s like to be attractive, to not have people wince when they look at my face. Must be nice. I met Man Bat. Once. Back even before the Asylum, when I was still a kid. He was shifted to human and he was kind, kinder than most. My experience with Gotham’s villains will have been different than Hood’s, though. He fights them. When I met them, mostly they saw Joker and they pitied me. Batman pitied me the most, and remembering him I say, “Batman was here.” 

Hood jerks away from my hands, wincing when the bandage tugs at his skin. “ _What?_ ” I take a quick step back, out of arm’s reach. His face softens. “I mean, uh, when was this?”

“An hour ago.”

Hood sighs, leaning back. “Let me guess. He was here to talk about Joker.” I nod. “Typical.” He’s up and grabbing his jacket, out the door before I can speak. I shrug, cleaning up the mess he left behind.  
++  
My arm wakes me up later on, around four. The sun’s just coming up. I’ve been mostly nocturnal for so long it’s weird to see. I ache at the elbow where the prosthetic is attached, sunk into the soft flesh there. The surgeons warned me it would hurt from time to time. 

They kept going on about bone strength and muscle tone and I don’t think they realized I understood them. I’ve worked as a medic for long enough to figure out how the body works. The hurt is bearable, but my sense of pain is skewed and I don’t want to mess anything up. 

The surgeons gave me a cream that they said would help. It’s a sticky, translucent green goo that looks more like aloe than anything else. I squeeze a dollop onto my palm and rub it into the seam where prosthetic meets flesh, the feeling making my skin crawl. Like it’s going to hurt, but not quite. 

“Quinn?” comes Hood’s sleepy voice from the living room. 

“I’m okay!” I call back, putting the cream to the side. Already the pain is fading, replaced by a fairly pleasant tingling sensation. My room smells like mint now. 

I can hear Hood moving around, still a little clumsy from sleep, then he appears in the doorway, so big he fills the whole opening as he leans against the frame. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” I respond, pulling my knees to my chest and smiling. This dark, he won’t be able to see the scars. “My arm was bothering me so I woke up.” 

“Mm,” he grunts, scratching at the back of his head. “You hungry?” 

“I could eat.” 

He nods, a single slow dip. “There’s a café a few blocks down, really good _avena_. Wanna go?”

“Sure.” He nods again, peeling himself away from the wall and heading elsewhere in the apartment. I’m too lazy and tired to put on a real outfit, so I grab a shirt of Hood’s that reads “Oceano Tour ‘96” and throw it on over my shorts, fishing around for the dollar store flip-flops we bought a few weeks back.

I’m brushing my teeth when he returns, fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a huge cat face on it. Hood has weird taste in clothes. He reaches around me for his toothbrush, and we stand companionably next to each other til I have to elbow him aside so I can spit. 

Wiping at my mouth with my good hand, I eye him in the mirror. The white streak is curling over his eyes, which are tired, shadows underneath. He’s got about three days of stubble going that even I can tell is a good look on him, though my interest in men, or anyone, seems to be gone now. Joker took that too, I guess.

As I brush past Hood to grab a sweater, I wonder if he realizes how normal we’ve become, maneuvering around each other like old friends which, I guess, we kind of are now. “Don’t forget a coat,” Hood calls from the bathroom, and I smile to myself.  
+  
The _avena_ is just as good as Hood said it was. I spoon it slowly into my mouth, watching him charm the waitress who keeps darting nervous looks at my scars. She’s pretty, and young, and a couple years ago I would’ve hated her for it. It’s probably a good thing that now I just don’t care. It’s early enough that there’s barely anyone else in here, just us and an old man reading the paper. 

Sometimes I worry that people will recognize me as the girl the Joker kidnapped, the stupid little girl who fell in love with him and got tossed in Arkham. But this is Gotham, and only the Bats care about people here. Hood’s focused on his food, clearly not noticing the waitress watching him with starry eyes from behind the counter. I wonder if it’s all people he’s not interested in, or just me. As long as he doesn’t start getting weird, I don’t care. 

We chat on and off about the weather, the people walking by, the shitty Spanish soap operas we both love. He speaks Spanish, and he’s willing to translate for me whenever we watch them. I was starting to learn some of the Creole when I lived in Haiti, but that’s the only other language I know. 

The sun is coming up by the time we’re finished, leaving the waitress a big enough tip that she gets flustered and thankful, waving as we leave the shop. We walk back to the apartment in peaceful silence, Hood smoking his slow way through a cigarette. I hate them, but it’s rare for him to use them so I don’t say anything. 

“I’m going away for a few days.” 

“I’ll try not to die without you,” I say dryly, thinking of what I’ll do with a few days alone. Probably nothing really. I’ll just wear less pants. We enter the main door of the apartment, climbing grimy stairs that creak under our feet.

Hood reaches out a hand when I stumble, his fingers closing around the hard metal of my prosthetic. I can actually feel things with it, though the sensation is dulled. “Careful,” he warns, smiling as we open the door. “Anyway, I’ll leave food and stuff behind. You can watch TV.” _Don’t treat me like Joker did_ , I want to say. _Don’t leave me alone for days like a pet who won’t even notice you’re gone._ But Hood’s grinning, open and warm and I _know_ him. I know he doesn’t think of me like that. We’re friends.

The tightness eases in my chest as I smile back. “Sure. Okay. Sounds fun.” I sit and ease my shoes off, relieved.  
+++  
Joker is somewhere in the apartment. I can hear his voice, the low rasp of his chuckle. It echoes through the darkness like a gunshot. “Ha, ha, HA! Quinnie!” 

I sit up, hand to my throat, screaming, “Hood!” scrambling off the bed and into the nearest corner. He runs in so fast he bumps against the doorway, a lamp crashing to the floor. He’s panting, eyes wide. 

“Quinn! What’s wrong?” 

I’m sobbing, curled as far in the corner of my room as possible. Joker is _somewhere in here_ and he’s going to hurt me, put his knife on my skin to cut deep. “Joker, he’s…he’s here!” 

Hood checks the corners, mouth tense. “Quinn, what?” 

“Joker’s here! Can’t you hear him? He’s _laughing_.” I cover my ears but the sound doesn’t go away; if anything it’s worse. 

Hood crouches, slow. His face is expressionless, almost. There’s a thin line between his brows that I wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t so close. “Quinn…I can’t hear anything.” 

Joker’s laughter just gets louder, the pitch it used to reach when he was in his worst moods, doing the worst things to me. “But I can _hear_ him.” Hood gets up, striding over to the light switch. The muscles in his shoulders are bunched up, making him even bigger than usual. Over the sound of Joker’s laughter I can hear the deep breaths he’s forcing himself to take. It’s easy for me to forget that he’s just as afraid of Joker as I am. Hood’s much bigger than Joker, but maybe he wasn’t when Joker killed him. 

He leaves the room, touching the gun in his waistband, and comes back a few minutes later, still frowning. “I checked everywhere. He’s not here. He’s _dead_ , Quinn.” Slowly, painfully, I force myself to uncurl. The laughter is fading little by little, losing strength. 

“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice, rubbing at the back of my neck. The metal of my fake hand is cold, bringing me into focus. “I’m _sorry_.”

Hood looks like he doesn’t know what to say to me, fingers playing awkwardly with the hem of his shirt. “You hear voices?” I look to the side, biting my lip. “Quinn,” he says, serious. 

I shrug uncomfortably. “Yeah, uh. Yeah. It started in the Asylum, but I thought they were gone. I haven’t heard anything in years. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s, um. Fine.” His voice is carefully soft, hands loose at his sides. He’s like the therapists back at Arkham, who started so nice, so gentle, til they were sticking electrodes to my forehead.

There’s something dark in my chest, there always is. Right now it’s bubbling in my throat, spilling out in, “Fuck you, I’m not crazy!”

“Fucking hell, Quinn, I know that.” Hood’s rubbing under his eyes, exhausted enough that he’s listing slightly to the side.

He only got back from patrol a few hours ago, meaning I woke him up from a deep sleep. Joker used to cut me when I didn’t let him sleep. For a second I’m back there, I’m trapped under him with the smell of smoke everywhere. “I’m so _sorry_.” Sometimes, if I apologize enough, people don’t hurt me. 

Hood sighs, reaching out a hand. I flinch, but he just hauls me to my feet. “Stop apologizing. It’s fine.” I can feel my bottom lip quiver and I _hate_ myself. “Come watch TV with me.” He leads me out to the living room, where the blankets are thrown aside. He hasn’t said anything yet about taking his bed back. 

I settle at one end, him at the other. His profile is relaxed in the dim light, the shadows under his eyes more prominent. The first show that comes on is Sesame Street. He looks to me and I shrug, so we stay there. Eventually he falls asleep, head tipped back, hand inevitably finding its way around my ankle. I stay awake the whole day as Sesame Street turns into older kid’s shows and the sun rises to its peak. Joker’s laughter is far off and nearly insignificant.  
++++  
I’m walking home from the shelter, alone. It’s late, around nine or ten. Doesn’t really matter; in this city, the scars on my face serve as protection. Joker’s been dead for two months but people still fear him. Not, I remind myself, that he owns me anymore. 

The wind screams down the street, insinuating itself between the gaps of my clothes. Winter will be here soon, with all the snow it always brings to Gotham. I shiver pre-emptively, brushing past a huge man in a long overcoat. “Excuse me.”

“Quinn?” I’d recognize that gravelly rasp of a voice anywhere.

“Croc?”

Like we’re two people reuniting after high school, a smile spreads across his scaly face. “Thought I smelled crazy.” I’m too surprised he’s here to really be offended, though I’m _not_ crazy. “Didn’t know you were back in Gotham, _cher_.” We move to the side as two men walk past, laughing. This close, Croc’s bulk is enough to block the wind. He towers over me, the street lights shadowing his eyes dark.  
The last time I saw him, I was still under Joker’s thumb, so wrapped up in his crazy that I couldn’t see a way out. “Thought you were dead,” he admits. I wonder if he mourned me, even a little. It’s okay if he didn’t; the me he used to know wasn’t worth mourning. 

“I’ve been in Gotham for a few months. Joker brought me back.” I don’t volunteer any more information and he doesn’t ask. 

“But you got away from him.” 

“I had him _killed_ ,” I say bitterly. Hood may have done the dirty work but I helped, I’m the one who lost a hand and I’m the one who held Joker’s ruined skull in my lap. 

Croc nods at my prosthetic, hunching over me a little as a group of people go by. The smell of old water and spice still lingers around him. Some things never change, Croc’s air of disinterested kindness must be one of them, because he says, “Nice hand. City like this isn’t safe, for a girl like you.” 

“I do okay."

He shrugs one massive shoulder, rumbling deep in his chest. “You get swept up in important people, _cher_. Dangerous people.” That’s fair-first Joker, now Hood-so I accept it with a nod. 

A car rolls by, sweeping headlights across his face. There are fine lines at the soft scales near his eyes; it occurs to me that Croc is old, old enough to be my father and maybe older. Huffing, he straightens, pulling his coat around himself. “Gotta go. Keep safe, Quinn.”

“You too,” I tell him, a bit touched that he cares enough to say it. He flashes fang before turning and strolling off. I head home unimpeded.  
++  
No one’s there when I get back; Hood’s been gone for two days with no word of when he’ll return. He didn’t seem too worried about any danger, though he wouldn’t let it show if he was. I take the long creaky stairs up to our apartment, feeling the ache in my calves. Hopefully, Hood won’t die. The thought makes my chest hurt, so I try not to focus on it. He’s come back from the dead once, he’ll be fine this time. I push the door open to an empty apartment, not noticing the glass that fell off the table. I stumble over it and everything goes black.  
+++  
When I wake up, it’s so _cold_ , and my skin crawls. I’m not in the apartment, I’m in some sort of huge fucking cave with wet clothes on. I get up, gingerly, feeling better than I have in years. My prosthetic hand’s still on, and I still have crooked broken fingers from Joker, but all the aches are gone. There’s always something dark in my chest, but right now it’s choking me and I don’t know _why_.

“Quinn.” I spin to face Hood, who’s slumped against the nearest cave wall, knees pulled to his chest. He’s wearing the helmet, and there are claw marks across the front of it, deep enough to reach the circuitry beneath.

“What happened to me?” I rasp, feeling like I haven’t had a drink in years. “Hood, _why are we here?_ ” My voice raises to a screech by the end of it as I step closer, curling my fists. I haven’t felt this unhinged since I went into Arkham, screaming the Joker’s name. Thinking this, I take a deep breath, forcibly calming down. “Hood?” He mutters something, taking off his helmet. Underneath, he looks like death, like he hasn’t slept or showered in days. “What?”  
“You died,” he repeats, louder this time. “You died, Quinn. And it was so _pointless_.” His voice cracks as he grabs at his hair, agonized. “You tripped over a glass and broke your neck.” 

“Where are we?” I ask after digesting this for a second. I should probably be freaking out, and I sort of am, but honestly? I’ve had worse. The dark feeling is in my chest, but it always is.

I crouch next to Hood, careful, put my arm around his broad, shaking shoulders. “A Lazarus Pit. It’s what brought me back, I had to sneak in, I killed a few of their guards, Quinn, _panita_ , _lo siento_.”

Disbelieving, I pull back. “You did all this for me?” I look over at the green, bubbling pit he must’ve dipped me in and feel a pang of terror, of memories that I can’t quite reach and don’t want to. “You really are my best friend.”

He glances up, surprised, and nods. “Of course.” 

“What happened to your helmet?” 

“The Pit makes people go crazy.” 

“I’m not crazy,” I spit, too harsh, pulling back. Why am I so angry? Hood holds his hands up.

“Yeah, not right now. But the Pit causes this thing called Lazarus Syndrome, and you weren’t yourself for a while there. You tried to kill me. I fought you off.” 

I realize the claw marks in his helmet are from me, from when I raked the fingers of my fake hand across his face. “Oh God I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs, calm, like this whole situation doesn’t bother him. Except he hasn’t taken his eyes off my face, and as I stand he starts forward, reaching out like he doesn’t want me to go too far. I skitter back and he pulls his hand away. “Sorry. Sorry,” he mumbles, more out of sorts than I’ve ever seen him.

I smile down at him, offering a hand to pull him up. He takes it, and after one false start I manage to pull him up. He looks down at me like he’s trying to memorize the details of my face, even the scars.

I grin back, at my best friend, at the guy who went through all that to bring me back to life and treats me like a person. Impulsively I wrap my arms around his waist, feeling solid muscle and the buttery-soft leather of his jacket. He hesitates before hugging back, hunching a little to reach me. “Thanks, Hood.” 

He smells, like he hasn’t put on deodorant or showered in a few days. In these circumstances, I don’t mind. He lets out a long breath that ruffles my hair before we let go.  
+  
Back at the apartment, I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror near the front door. I look the same, mostly; black skin, natural hair, gnarled scars around my mouth and throat. Except my face is slightly rounded, cheeks soft, none of the hard lines I gained after years of Joker and hunger. 

I turn to Hood, who’s stopped right behind me in the doorway. “I look like I’m twelve, Hood.” He smirks, nudging me aside to step further into the room. I lean in closer to the mirror, poking at my cheeks, pulling my eyes down. They’re bigger, only a little bit, but it’s my face. I know what it’s supposed to look like. To be fair, I look closer to eighteen than twelve. Still, it’s weird. 

“The Lazarus Pit undoes all kinds of damage.”

“Aging isn’t damage,” I protest, eventually shrugging the concern away, figuring it’s probably for the best. Aren’t women supposed to desire youth anyway? As far as I can tell, this has extended my lifespan for a few more years and that’s a good thing. “Okay. I’m starving, can we get something to eat?”

I don’t bother to wait for his answer before I’m heading out the door. I don’t mention that the apartment is meticulously clean, nothing on the floor, or that I spotted smashed glass glittering at the bottom of the opposite wall.  
+++  
I wake up breathing hard, from nightmares that I only vaguely remember, flashes of black and pain and hot anger. The apartment is quiet; we don’t have any neighbors. Hood told me a while ago that he bought the whole building when he moved in, so no one would have any questions if weird things happened. I get out of bed, creeping to the kitchen and past his couch. 

A few steps later, I hear him roll over, a sleepy, “Quinn?” This has to be the tenth time I’ve woken him up from dead sleep. Poor guy. 

“Yeah. It’s just me.” He sits up, rubbing at the sides of his undercut. It’s getting long again. He showered when we came home, but he still needs to shave. I can mostly just see his outline in the street light coming through the window. “I had a nightmare.” 

He grunts, heaving himself off the couch, grabbing a sweatshirt draped over the back. It’s an ugly Goodwill thing with a huge train on it. I wonder if either of us own any clothes that aren’t from Goodwill, actually. “Yeah, I had a bunch of those, after…” He trails off, halfway into the sweatshirt, and I don’t push. 

I wait til he’s pushed his head through the collar, hair all fucked up. “I was gonna make myself something to eat.” 

Hood snorts, walking past me and snaring two mugs from the dishwasher. “You can barely make cereal.” That’s fair, so I don’t bother protesting. We sit around in peaceful silence as he boils milk, head nodding. His hair’s still wet from the shower he took before bed. The sky outside is black. Usually, we sleep from five to around twelve in the afternoon. 

Last night, we went to bed right away. I think the Pit exhausted us both. I can’t really wrap my head around being dead, after everything I went through and a fucking cup took me out? I look over to Hood, who must be thinking the same thing; his face is crawling towards haunted as he doles out spoonfuls of cocoa. 

I clear my throat, raspy, about to say something. Hood turns and his face is closed off, so I just take the mug he hands me. “Come up to the roof.” 

“You have a roof?” 

He gives me an eye roll that I know I deserve. “Yes, surprisingly I have a roof.” When I slide a look at him I see he’s smirking. 

We take the stairs to the roof, several stories up. I’ve never been anywhere in here besides Hood’s apartment. We pass empty apartment after empty apartment. In a city like Gotham, with property going fast, this place must be worth millions even in a neighborhood like this. I wonder, again, how much money Hood has. 

We traipse through a layer of dust and finally emerge out of the stairwell, into crisp fall air. Now I can hear traffic clearly, the constant thrum of Gotham. Pigeons scatter as we cross the roof, Hood leaning his elbows on the fence that lines the edge.

I follow to stand next to him, looking at the street below. Even this late at night the street is full, cars honking and people hurrying past. I take a sip of my cocoa and wonder how we’ve come so far. When we first met he was using me as bait for the Joker and now we’re roommates who drink cocoa on the roof at three in the morning. 

“Hood.” He glances over at me, cocoa forming a mustache. “Thanks.” For taking me in, for letting me get better on my own, for bringing me back from the dead, for the cocoa. 

His mouth turns up at the corners, so I hope he gets what I mean. “Don’t worry, Quinn. It was nothing.” I smile back and look over Gotham again.


	2. Grin

I wake up to footsteps, close but not too close. “Hood?” I mumble, figuring I’ve woken him up enough times, he can feel free to do the same. 

“Hey,” he croaks from the doorway.

“You okay?”

There’s silence that lasts slightly too long before he responds, “Yeah, of course.” I flick the lamp by my bed on, finally able to see. Hood’s wearing Gotham U sweatpants, the dim light softening the autopsy scars on his chest. There are marks on his collarbone like he was scratching them. I didn’t hear him scream or anything, but then I never do. 

He’s staring at my face again. I resist the urge to tell him I’m alive, that I’m not going anywhere; that would just make everything awkward. “Do you wanna come in?” 

I motion to the spot at my feet, and he settles there with a grace I could only hope for, asking, “Are you feeling okay?” I wonder how long this mothering is going to last. It’s kind of nice; my mom never bothered taking care of me. She’s in jail now, so I don’t worry about her anymore. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I pull my knees closer to my chest, waiting for him to talk. He’s silent for a while, looking down at his hands. I can hear the clock ticking in the next room; it annoyed me when I first got here but I’m used to it now. Exhaustion pulls at my eyelids. 

“When I came home that day, you were lyin’, uh, lying on the floor,” he starts, glancing at me and away. “And I knew right away. I’ve seen a lotta dead people.” I’m steeling myself for some soppy confession or Hood bursting into tears, but he just stays there, his eyes far off. After a while he lets out a long breath, getting to his feet. “I’m glad you’re back, Quinn.” 

“Glad to be back.” That’s not the most delicate way I could’ve said things. Thanks, again, might’ve been more appropriate. I uncurl my legs, throwing them over the bed. I have to be up in an hour for the shelter anyway. 

Yesterday, Maureen managed to find a small apartment in the Bowery and we’re moving her out today. It’s very exciting. Hood tosses me the sweatshirt I reach a hand out for; it’s a monstrosity of a thing with thick brown and gray stripes. 

“I’m gonna go make breakfast,” he tells me, heading out of the room. 

Right before he reaches the doorway I say, “Hey.” He turns halfway, one ear aimed in my direction. “Wake me up whenever you need to.” He half-smiles and heads out.

+++  
At the shelter I’m sorting through papers, one pile for grown women and one pile for children. Conversations swirl around me and away, never quite touching. Even here people avoid me, although they’re much more polite about it. I don’t blame them, not anymore. Even all these years later my face is still grotesque. 

I touch a finger to the scar down my back that aches when the weather is bad, an unwanted gift from the Joker. I can still remember him kneeling over me, holding me down, the strength of his skinny arms that people always underestimated. I can feel his hands spread over the wings of my shoulder blades, pushing.

“Quinn.” I turn to Diamond, the women who runs the shelter. She’s kind to me, no nonsense and fair.

I cough for a second, finally letting out a gravelly, “Yeah?” I’d try a smile, except that makes the scars even worse and draws comparisons to Joker. 

Diamond is a woman in her late forties who keeps her hair in long dreads that she usually wears up. I’ve never seen her without her breast cancer ribbon, and she’s married to a tall Asian woman who comes in twice a week with scones. I like her, and it’s not always easy for me to like people. So I wait patiently for her to continue, my thumb lightly stroking against the patient name on the paper I’m holding. Shelby Marchend, 26, came in with bruised ribs and a sprained elbow. No kids. She’s filing charges against her husband. 

I read the words as Diamond starts talking. “You’ve been working hard lately. I’m transferring you to infant care.” I beam; infant care is highly contested territory, and being transferred to it is a sign of Diamond’s approval. I’m not allowed to work with older children, because of my face, but babies are fine. 

“Thank you.” 

Diamond pats me on the shoulder, taking plenty of time. In this place, I never need to flinch away. Every woman here knows what it means to be like me. “You’re welcome, honey.” I watch her go with a smile on my face.   
++  
I bounce a baby on my lap, making funny faces. He’s three months; at that age, they mostly just stare. His mom came in with two kids and a black eye, finally done with her husband’s abuse. This one’s name is Luke. He beams at me, grabbing for my hair with surprisingly strong fingers. 

“Who’s a sweet boy?” I coo, gently booping his nose. 

“You’re good with kids,” his mother, Ai, says from behind me. I turn, feeling a little guilty even though I’m supposed to be here. Some of the women here don’t trust me, seeing my scars before they see anything I’ve done. Ai just keeps smiling, though, resting a hand over her rounded stomach. I feel bad for her; five months pregnant and she’s all on her own. 

“Thank you!” I grin, genuinely pleased. 

“Do you have any kids of your own?”

I choke, recovering before she notices. “Uh, no.” I think of Joker, over me, in me, and thank God that nothing of his ever took hold. If he ever gave me a child, I would…I shake the dark thoughts away, smiling again at Ai. “I don’t think I’m ever going to have children.” 

She makes a small moue of disappointment. “Too bad. You’d make a good mother.” Ai rubs her hand over her belly. “When John pushed me down the stairs, I thought I would lose this one. It scared me more than the thought of what he’d do when I left him.” She gives a little half-shrug, like _what are you gonna do?_

I understand; Joker broke my wrist, my ribs, my fingers, my mind. I still didn’t leave him til something scared me enough that being with him was worse than being alone. “I’m glad you came here, Ai,” I tell her. She smiles softly back.  
+  
I take a nap on Hood’s couch after work, too lazy to make it to my bed. It smells like Hood, leather and the weird chemical shit he uses to keep his domino mask on and expensive cologne. I know that Hood, for all his Goodwill clothes, is secretly a rich boy. I don’t hold it against him.

When he comes in I slit my eyes open, sleepy and out of it. Washed out in the doorway, he looks…like… “Peter?” I come awake all in a rush, heart fluttering at my throat, scrambling back into the cushions. 

“Who the hell is Peter?” Hood grumbles, dumping his helmet near the door. He steps closer and he’s himself again, not the stranger I met briefly years ago. Joker killed him right in front of me. I don’t want to dump my problems on Hood, not again. I don’t want to think about Peter’s aunt and uncle, finding his body in an alleyway, or that Peter was nice to me and Joker killed him for it. My fault. 

“H-Hey, Hood. How goes things?”

His face immediately contorts into concern. “Uh, hey, Quinn.” He settles next to me on the couch, our legs brushing. We’ve been a lot closer since I died and came back. I guess we kinda realized that we mean a lot more to each other than we thought. “You okay?” I go to take a deep breath that never comes, stuck in my throat by a hitching sob. Hood sighs and pulls me closer, his bulk reassuring. 

I can’t cry, _Joker loved it when I cried_ , so I sniff once instead, annoyed. “What’s _wrong_ with me?” I feel unbalanced and out of place, my emotional spectrum constantly changing. 

“It’s the Lazarus Pit, Quinn. It’ll go away eventually. What happened?”

I raise one shoulder, dipping my head. “There was a kid. He’s dead now.” He’s dead because of me, his blood is on _my_ hands. I stretch them out before me, flexing the smooth metal of the prosthetic, the tattooed, broken fingers of my right. Hood doesn’t push for more or tell me bullshit about grieving. We just sit there.  
+++  
Some guy grabs me when I’m in the store getting groceries, his hand big enough that it wraps easily around the thin bones of my wrist. I’m suddenly very aware of how delicate I am, how easily he could hurt me. I hunch into my jacket. 

“I know you, you’re that bitch from TV, with Joker.” His eyes narrow. “His _fucking_ girlfriend.”   
“Um.” I’m supposed to be better than this, stronger than this, but all I can think of is that he’s going to hurt me, it’s going to _hurt_. There’s a whine growing in the back of my throat, not that that’s ever helped, the man’s grip firms like a vice. I manage to meet his eyes, they’re blue, he’s just another guy who knows that girls like me are easy targets. But I’m not that girl anymore. “Fuck off,” I hiss, angry now. “Fuck off!”

Hood’s suddenly there, large and terrifying, his face in firm angry lines. He does something fast to the guy’s hand that makes him let go with a grimace, taking a step back. “What’s she doing out with people like us?” the guy protests, holding onto his wrist. 

“I. I can be with people,” I mumble, swaying into Hood’s reassuring bulk. The guy scoffs and heads off, clearly not willing to deal with Hood, who’s bristling. I bend to pick up the basket of groceries; the eggs have cracked, dripping goo. “Oh, shit.” 

“Leave it,” Hood orders, glaring into the distance. 

“But, I-”

“Leave it!” he yells, making me flinch. My hands fist at my sides, the fake one whirring.

“You don’t get to yell at me,” I murmur, cold. 

Immediately he softens, apologetic. “Oh, shit, Quinn-” I want to run off, make a big deal of it. I don’t get to be that person anymore, though. 

“So, groceries are out for today,” I say instead, letting the basket drop again. I grin at Hood, who smiles reflexively back. “Takeout again?” We walk to the door together, Hood holding it open for me. I duck easily under his arm and start up the street, thinking. “Chinese or pizza?” 

“Chinese,” Hood decides, falling into step with me. 

I flash him another smile, grateful that he’s not mad. “Chinese it is, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yeah so here's this i guess? i think i'm done for real now but you never know. quinn's the only oc i've ever bothered caring about lol

**Author's Note:**

> where the fuck did this come from, you can all blame mx_carter for this fic and for quinn's briefly dying, they encourage me whenever i want to sin and i blame them <3 anyway there might be more but almost definitely not. i think i've said all i need to about my trashcan death child


End file.
